


Art Imitating

by vorpalblades



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Comedy, Gen, Ghosts, Halloween, High School, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 06:53:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11202747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vorpalblades/pseuds/vorpalblades
Summary: Sam hates Halloween and everything that comes with it.





	Art Imitating

**Author's Note:**

> Importing old fic from LJ. This was for spn_halloween 2007 with the prompt, "Sammy has to tell his class a scary story, so he tells them about one of John's jobs."

_Shower_ , Dean thinks as he slowly extracts himself from the car. He pulls the zipper up on his jacket, pops the collar high to shield himself from the mid-autumn Massachusetts wind. _Shower and beer_. It’s a good plan, a solid plan. One that Dean intends to follow to its completion.

Downtime officially sucks. Ammo’s running low, they’ve maxed the last round of credit cards, the newest batch hasn’t arrived in their P.O. Box yet, and pool hustling loses its appeal when everyone at the local bar knows both his face and his skill. Which means, and Dean can’t even say the words aloud, _day jobs_. There’s one garage in the general area and it’s strictly a family business, so no opportunity there. And there were very few feasible places hiring when they rolled into town. Dad took the night watchman position at the mini-mall after a background check of his Seth McGrath alias turned out clean. And Dean…Well, Dean got stuck working for the only company that would hire a nineteen year old with no college experience and very little on-the-books references—the county’s cemetery maintenance crew.

Digging graves for eight hours every day without the satisfaction of setting something on fire afterwards. There are some things in this world that are just so wrong. And Sam gets to sit on his ass all day in a nice, climate-controlled classroom. _So_ wrong.

For the upteenth time in the last two months, Dean curses the fact that Dad found a second-floor apartment. These stairs are a bitch when it feels like imps are using your muscles for a taffy pull. He could use a good imp infestation right now, actually. They don’t linger like lower back pain. They’re easy to get rid of—just a few iron filings thrown in their direction and poof, gone—and watching those squirmy bodies of theirs explode with a little squeak is always good for a laugh.

God, he’s actually wishing for imps. _Shower and beer, **now.**_

He’s barely seen his father since day one of his new job—Dad’s almost always leaving for work just as Dean’s coming home—and today’s no different. They have a near collision on their stairs, sidestep one another, and Dad gives a mumbled “take care of your brother” as he passes by. The Impala’s firing back up as Dean puts his key in the door, and he can’t help but feel a little pity for the car. Poor girl’s working just as hard as the rest of them. He’ll probably treat her to a full detailing job come next paycheck.

All thoughts of the car cease once he opens the door and gets hit with a strong sensation of _wrong_. Every hair on the back of his neck stands on end, and his fingers get a little twitchy for some sort of weapon.

Sam’s watching television. Five o’clock on a Tuesday night, and his little brother doesn’t have his nose shoved in a textbook. Something is definitely not right here.

Dean drops his keys into his pocket, tosses his jacket onto the back of the couch. “Hey Brainiac, you finish your homework already?”

“Not doing it.” Sam doesn’t even look away from the screen.

Where the hell is holy water when Dean needs it?

“Since when do you skip out on homework?”

Now Sam glances up, and boy, he looks pissed, in more than a I’m-fifteen-years-old-and-angry-at-the-world sort of way. “Since we moved to a town about twenty miles from Salem that is absolutely obsessed with Halloween.”

Ugh, the dreaded H-word. No one in the Winchester clan is particularly fond of the holiday. The time around October 31st usually means stupid kids pulling more-than-stupid pranks, like, oh, daring each other to read Latin phrases from a weird-ass book they found in their grandfather’s attic while standing in the middle of a graveyard. And then who has to clean up the mess afterwards? Yeah, that’s right.

Not to mention that Dad gets a tad touchy this time of year. Puts the whole family on edge.

Dean contemplates plopping onto the couch next to his brother but knows his father wouldn’t really appreciate the grave dirt on the furniture. Kinda kills the chances of getting their deposit back. “H-Day’s not until Sunday. What kind of assignment could they possibly give that makes the great Sam Winchester refuse to show off his ginormous brain?”

Sam’s response is nothing better than a mumble, and Dean pokes him hard in the ribs. “What was that?”

Sam swats Dean’s hand away and rubs angrily at his side. “I said, she wants us to write a ghost story. At least three pages, typed, graded on idea, content and grammar. And she’s choosing people ‘at random,’” and hell, Sam even makes air-quotes with his fingers, “to read theirs in front of the class.”

That explains it. Hard to follow Dad’s number one rule of “you don’t talk about the family business” when you’re being _encouraged_ to talk about the family business. Dean can practically see the scales teetering in Sam’s head. Right, time for damage control.

“Well, I think you’re missing out on one hell of an opportunity here, Sammy. I mean, what is the only good thing about Halloween?”

“All the candy on sale afterwards?”

Dean stops, raises his eyebrows a bit. Oddly enough, he didn’t think of that. “Okay, that too. But I’m talking about the chance to scare the crap out of all those jerks in class.”

*****

_These people are certifiable_. Sam walks into his school on Friday and is promptly greeted by a faceful of black crepe paper streamers. Hokey pictures of witches and ghosts adorn the doors, and every other overhead light is covered with a black trash bag, designed to give the hallway a spooky look. This is high school, for crying out loud, and the kids are running around like summer vacation has come early.

And the teachers aren’t any better. His algebra teacher passes out cheap Halloween pencils and holiday-themed word problems. In physics, they have to map the trajectory and velocity of airborne jack-o-lanterns. History class seems like it might be promising at first, until someone brings up the witch trials and the whole conversation degrades into the realism of magic presented in _The Craft_. God, he hates that movie.

He should have just skipped today.

Before he knows it, it’s time for English and Composition. He already knows what to expect: first, the teacher will call on Emma to read her story, then Steven, then Sam. Maybe one more if time allows. Then she’ll collect the papers and everyone will sit there, doing nothing more than talk about what costume they’re wearing at what party this weekend, until the bell rings.

Sam has it wrong. She calls on _Steven_ first, who ends his third-rate slasher story by jumping at Kasey and making her scream. Which makes her BFF-whatever Renee scream too. Which, of course, causes the whole class to laugh like hyenas.

Emma wrote a pretty amazing retelling of the Monkey’s Paw, and if any of these people had a decent sense of “subtle horror,” she would have gotten more praise than just a half-hearted round of applause.

Sure enough, his teacher then calls Sam up. He’s pretty damn confident in his story. It fits the requirements, it’s well researched, and he proofread it twice. So it’s not the quality of the paper that has his stomach all twisted up, it’s the content. This could go so horribly wrong.

Here goes nothing.

“In 1993, two girls were found mutilated in the basement of a municipal building in Texas. As it turns out, they were the lucky ones…”

The whole class is silent while Sam tells his story, and he finishes just as the final bell rings. He gives his paper to his teacher, then hastily gathers his things to leave, and for some reason, he doesn’t register the fact that everyone’s still seated as he walks out the door.

*****

_Beer, then shower._ Turns out that the Monday after Halloween is the worst day ever to work in a cemetery. Candle wax on headstones, toilet paper everywhere, and one suspicious-looking patch of dead grass that was caused by either a corpse rising from the grave or a campfire nearly gone wrong. Dean doesn’t want to know which, doesn’t even pry, because in less than a week, it won’t be his concern anymore. Thank God.

He passes Dad on the stairs, they grunt at each other in acknowledgement, and then he’s inside. He nearly says a _Christo_ out of instinct.

Sam’s watching television. And slowly demolishing a bag of candy corn larger than his head.

“Now what happened? They give you a post-Halloween follow-up assignment?”

Without looking up from the screen, Sam holds up a tri-folded letter. From back by the door, Dean can barely make out the high school’s letterhead at the top. “Gave half of my class nightmares, and apparently my teacher fell asleep in the lounge today and woke up screaming. The principal wants to have a conference with Dad next week to discuss my mental and emotional well-being.”

That’s…really fucking impressive. “Jesus, what story did you tell them?”

“The poltergeist in Waco.” Yeah, that one would do it. Dean shivers at the memory.

“Your principal _does_ know that we’re out of here this weekend, doesn’t he?”

“Nope.” Sam turns up the volume on the TV, some nerdy afternoon program, then drops the remote and holds up the bag. “Candy corn?”

 

end


End file.
